This invention relates generally to railway trucks and more particularly to a braking system for railway trucks.
Railway trucks require braking systems in order to stop the railway car mounted on the trucks. Typically, such braking systems utilize a pair of spaced apart drive assemblies mounted between the side frames of the truck with a pair of brake cylinders interconnecting the two drive assemblies to provide the braking force between the brake shoes and wheels. This braking system requires that the space between the side frames remain unobstructed in order that the drive assemblies can be accommodated between the side frames. This requirement serves to limit the permissible configurations that can be used for the side frames and also prevents interconnection of the side frames intermediate their ends as is frequently desirable. Thus, these prior art braking systems prevented the use of desired truck configurations.